New York Road Runners to Vacate Fabled Headquarters

The New York Road Runners will close the doors on its headquarters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 5 p.m. on Saturday. The six-story building, purchased in 1981 for $1 million, is in the final stages of being sold by the NYRR, which will open a new “running center” near Columbus Circle in 2016, most likely in the summer.

Until the Columbus Circle site opens, NYRR will have an annex at 322 Columbus Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for race number pickups beginning on December 1, according to the NYRR website.

The old headquarters, on East 89th Street near Fifth Avenue and half a block from Central Park, was “embedded in the community, but it was never that easy to get to,” Peter Ciaccia, NYRR’s president of events and race director of the New York City Marathon, told Runner’s World. One goal in selecting a new location was that it “be someplace that is very accessible to all the folks in all the boroughs,” he said.

Columbus Circle, where NYC Marathon runners make their final entrance into Central Park and head to the finish line, is a major hub for subways to and from Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The NYRR race schedule and membership have increased their reach beyond Manhattan in recent years.

The East 89th Street site had continued to serve as a location for race bib pickups and a gathering point for running classes. But NYRR has had much of its administrative staff in offices on West 56th Street, three blocks south of Central Park, since 2012.

“Ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack doesn’t really work,” Ciaccia said. “It was getting on the tight side. It was a beautiful townhouse, but we changed so many configurations to fit people in. At one point, I think I was working on a card table in the corner.”

The new running center will be a ground-level facility with entrances on West 56th and West 57th Streets.

“We’re going to do something very special,” NYRR Chairman George Hirsch said. “We want to do more for the membership and more to make people fully aware of all our youth and community programming. We want to highlight a lot more about the organization than just giving out bibs for races.”

Before the East 89th Street property was purchased in 1981, the fledgling NYRR occupied office space at the West Side YMCA in Manhattan. Ultramarathoner Jessie Adair was a volunteer, sitting on the floor stuffing membership envelopes with NYRR President Fred Lebow, when “the talk was that he was thinking of buying a building,” she said. “On one side people were saying, ‘No, that’s gonna cost so much.’ On the other, they said, ‘That’s great.’”

Hirsch, publisher of The Runner at the time, said, “I was one of the people saying to Fred, “What do we need a building like that for, for a running club?’ I was definitely a voice of caution. And Fred saw big things.” The Rudin Family, prominent real estate moguls who have been benefactors of the NYC Marathon for decades, helped finance the purchase of the building.

“It was absolutely right, having [the headquarters] there” on 89th Street, Hirsch said. For the expanding staff, most of whom were avid runners, the location was ideal; a person could be out the door and into Central Park in two minutes. For many years, almost all of the NYRR’s weekend races began next to that entrance to the park, called the Engineer’s Gate. Mile-by-mile (and kilometer-by-kilometer) training routes marked off on the park roadway and on the reservoir oval began just inside the Gate.

Adair recalled the building “was a wreck” that Lebow asked for volunteers to help spruce up. She ended up painting Lebow’s office. “Everything felt as if it was askew and warped and at an angle,” she said. “It didn’t seem square and solid," like it would eventually become.

In less formal times, the East 89th Street building had a caretaker who resided in the basement and spoke to almost no one. “He reminded me of Bela Lugosi, but he turned out to be a pussycat,” said Adair, who became a staffer on what was then called New York Running News.

The caretaker’s first name was Bob; NYRR veterans cannot recall his last name. When he died, it was discovered that he was also a photographer who ventured out into the city on weekends and had an artist’s eye for personality and detail. The lobby of the building was later devoted to an exhibit of his work. Joe Kleinerman, one of the NYRR’s founders, inhabited an upper floor in his later years and became a registrar and unofficial gatekeeper, and the namesake of the Joe Kleinerman Lobby.

“Being able to work there was special,” said Ciaccia.

Despite the shifting of locations, the block of East 89th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues will continue to be known as Fred Lebow Place.

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